Why does nothing rhyme with Linux???

Thursday, September 29, 2005

TLLTS TV Coming Soon?

When The Linux Link website was started back in 2001 (at least, according to the Wayback machine) they were planning on doing a magazine or newsletter, but that never really picked up. In 2003, they started doing TLLTS, and just recently finished their 100th episode. Now, what's next? According to Pat...
Another cool export script is converting your video to theora. This will come in handy as I plan to record some videos of upcoming TLLTS episodes. Why video tape TLLTS episodes? Stay tuned for an announcement in the near future!
I hope you only release them in theora :)

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Got SharpMusique Working

I now have a fully functional installation of SharpMusique installed and working well.

To install it on Kanotix, I installed the Ubuntu package with KPackage. Of course there were dependency issues, but all I had to do to fix them and get it to run was a simple 'apt-get -f install' and I was in the blue.

Maybe it's time to buy songs on iTunes now :-)

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

NewsForge: "KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop"

I just came across this article on NewsForge about KDE 4, the next generation of KDE.
As the dust settles from aKademy 2005, the annual KDE conference, it's a good time to take a look at what the KDE developers are working on. Though KDE 3.5 isn't even out yet, developers are already working on KDE 4. Plenty of work has already gone into porting existing code to Qt4, the GUI toolkit upon which KDE is based, and KDE developers are working on projects that could radically change how the world's most popular free desktop looks and works.

KDE 3.5 is due out in late October. The 3.5 release will give KDE users and developers a mature, stable, and integrated desktop platform with a wide range of applications.

Its developers see KDE 4 as a chance to experiment and introduce new concepts and applications that do more than build on the strength of KDE's existing architecture. Just as KDE 3 brought major transformations in that architecture, developers are looking to KDE 4 to transform the desktop experience and enable a surge in third-party application development. With a KDE 4 release not likely to happen for at least another year, the developers have plenty of time to experiment.
I now firmly believe that KDE 4 (Plasma) will be the "vista killer". If they can match OS X's speed and simplicity with Linux's 'Linuxness', then people would probably start using it. Why? They don't have to shell out money for overpriced Macs, don't have to pay for an operating system, and will probably be able to use it on a computer they already own, or a low-end new one.

I can imagine computer manufacturers giving you the option of Linux preinstalled with a reduced price in the not too distant future (HP is going to start doing that soon with Ubuntu). If you can give them the same computer for $100 less (or however much Windows costs for new PCs), they'd be stupid not to do it. And once computer manufacturers start doing that and Linux has a respectable market share, more and more apps will be ported and it will be Bill's downfall.

Check out the article, it's a good read.

Oh, and here's a comic.

Friday, September 23, 2005

What's TiVo Good For?

Well, I now have DirecTV. I know that I said a while ago that I was getting Dish Network, well they tried to install it but had line-of-sight issues. DirecTV is different, in the sense that it uses two satellite dishes instead of one "Super Dish" that Dish Network uses. They were able to place the two satellites in different places, and eliminate the problem.

But with it, I got the DVR. I had heard about the DirecTV DVR using TiVo, but it was never really advertised like that, so I didn't think they used it. Well, I was wrong. I now have a TiVo unit with a special receiver for DirecTV.

And after using TiVo for a little while, I've realized it's only good for one thing: recording TV. Period. So far, I haven't found any useful feature that hasn't been in MythTV. In fact, MythTV can do so much more that TiVo can, it's not even funny. When you take into account all the features in MythTV like DVD playing/ripping/burning capabilities, intergrated weather, an intergrated web browser, RSS feed support, MAME, MythTV's ability to remotely schedule recordings, podcast support (if you set it up right), and countless other features that you can do with other plugins, why would anyone not want MythTV?

Oh, but I guess I mispoke. There is a great feature that TiVo has called "Suggestions". When it is enabled (which it was by default), it will record shows it thinks you will like if there's free space on the HD (without bothering to ask). The added advantage to this is when you try to record a program you actually want to see, you're informed that it's already recording something. And after a few days of leaving this feature on, the HD is cluttered with useless recordings you'll never watch anyways...
Someone needs to step up and be able to manufacture a cheap MythTV box, because TiVo is still cheap. An 80 hour TiVo is $300, while the cheapest MythTV box I saw would be the $500 one that guy is documenting. I know, if you get a lifetime license it does amount to $500, but you can pay a monthly fee, that's probably what most people do.

(Oh, and did you hear that TiVo is not selling anything directly? They're redirecting users to BestBuy)

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

A Cool Start Page

For a while there's been My Yahoo, there's been Google, and more recently Microsoft's start.com, but I found one that's really cool.

It's called NetVibes. It's a home page that can show you the wether, many website feeds, and can even show you new GMail messages. It also has a similar layout to Google and start.com, meaning that you can drag and arrange the different boxes.

What I like about the feed feature of it is that you can read feeds within a new 'window' on the same homepage, meaning you don't need to go to the actual site to read it's content.

But what's really cool about this is that it's completely done with Ajax. You don't need an account to customize the page, but you can get one to see it from other computers.

Oh, and did I mention, you can even change the title :-)

I'm giving it a try, it's pretty cool.

Signs Can Be Misleading

I was in the Library today. I passed the computer lab and saw a sign that said, "Do NOT Open Windows". The computer lab is air conditioned, and the windows aren't supposed to be open.

That just struck me as funny :-)

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Firefox

I'm sure some of you read Jon's blog. He recently posted an article on Firefox (that got 15 comments at time of posting this - wow!) and I would like to state my opinion on it.

First off, I respect Jon's opinion, and he does have a good point. With that said...

According to Symantec:
The Mozilla family of browsers had the highest number of vulnerabilities during the first six months of 2005 with 25; 18 of these — 72% — were rated as high-severity. Microsoft Internet Explorer had 13 vendor confirmed vulnerabilities of which eight — 62% — were considered high-severity.
But I have a problem with this statement. While Firefox has more discovered bugs, notice that IE only has "vendor confirmed" bugs. Firefox is open source, so anyone can see the source code and tell wether there really is a bug or not. How do we know that Microsoft is hiding how many bugs there really are? There are probably tons and tons of bugs in IE, but since it is closed source, we'll never know.

But, let's face it - Firefox still has bugs. However, I really have no problem using it under Linux. Chances are that several of those bugs use an exploit to make Firefox download and run a virus. What kind of virus? A Windows virus, duh. What's gonna happen when it tries executing a Windows virus on Linux? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. (before you jump on me about Wine, I have heard that almost no Windows virus has ran successfully using Wine)

I'll admit, I didn't look at any of the bugs to see what they were, but I imagine there are a few that do affect Linux machines. Time to use Konqueror again? Maybe, maybe.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Back, and the TagCloud is Going Down!

Hi everyone.

I'm back from my little trip, and I decided to remove the TagCloud. Jon agrees with me, it basically is a piece of crap and I think that almost no one uses it.

Expect more posts in the not too distant future :-)

Friday, September 16, 2005

Going Away for a Few Days

I'll be going away for a few days. I should be back on Monday.

May the Penguin be with you :-)

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Added Technorati Back

Well, I can't yet tell which search is better, so for the moment, they're both on. My instinct tells me that Google will probably be more standard and unlikely to change as time goes on (heck, they have the same design they had seven years ago), but Technorati is a little more modern, is completely focused on blogs, and has had a blog search for a while now.

I think the winner will be whichever one updates faster. This will probably give Google the upper hand, since Blogger is a Google service, but who knows, really?

(also, remember to vote in the next entry)

Does Anyone Use TagCloud?

I'm sure everyone's noticed the TagCloud on the sidebar, as it's been there almost since I started this blog a few months ago.

Anyway, I'm now starting to see the uselessness in it. It does provide a tagging interface, but I cannot specify what tags I want posts to be, and it doesn't update that frequently.

So, I'm thinking of removing it. But you have a say in it. Should I remove the TagCloud?

Yes
No

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

A New Blog Search

OK, Google has launched their blog search service, and Blogger has their own interface to this as well. As you can see, they changed the top bar on all blogs.

I updated the search on the sidebar and will be trying out this new blog search and see how it compares to Technorati. I think it will be better, as Technorati takes a while to update and (hopefully) Blogger should update it quickly.

Monday, September 12, 2005

eBay Buys Skype

We all heard the rumors, now they have announced it. eBay is going to buy Skype for something like $4 Billion. Is this a good thing? I'm not sure. As long as eBay keeps Skype as good and free as it is now, I'll be fine. The second they put as much as a tiny text ad, I'm going to Gizmo.

This is another example of what can happen when a company decides to release their product close-sourced. If Skype had been open, it could have been even better than it is now and we would never have to worry about big companies like eBay.

(oh, and by the way, three different queries are on Technorati's top ten right now about eBay and Skype)

Oh well, hopefully eBay won't screw Skype over.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Watch High-Quality Yahoo Videos on Linux

Once again, I came across this on digg. It's from UNEASYsilence.

Everyone who's tried to use LaunchCast probably knows that it requires Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. You could probably get away from using WMP with MPlayer Plug-in, but it will not run without IE (I've tried using the agent switcher, and it didn't work).

Now, I'm glad I saw this. If you have the video ID (which is easy to obtain), you can use VLC (I assume MPlayer and/or Xine work too, but I haven't tried them) to play the 700 KB/s video. If you've ever used LaunchCast before, you know that the 700 KB/s is the high quality video, and you can usually only get it by paying a monthly subscription. Now you can play it without that.

Disclaimer: the information and the links here are provided for informational purposes only. I do not claim responsibility for anything done with them. Use at your own risk.

Here's how:
  1. Obtain a Video ID (find a link to a video, but right click and go to properties, and it is the consecutive number in the link)
  2. Go here, type in the Video ID and hit 'Grunt Big for Daddy'
  3. Copy the mms:// link and paste it into VLC using the HTTP method (yes, the mms:// and everything)
That's all.

UNEASYsilence Article

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Windows XP Embedded Shouldn't Be Used

I saw a show a little earlier today on PBS, called "High Tech Home". I was watching it, and got to a section called "Windows Embedded Devices", and I almost switched the channel.

But, I watched on. They only had two different devices on there, and neither really intrests me. Why would any company choose to use Windows XP in their embedded devices? Not only do you have to deal with licensing issues, and things like viruses, but since you can't see the source code it just isn't practical to use.

Linux, on the other hand, would be perfect. You could modify the Kernel and applications so they would run more efficient and work better, and wouldn't have to worry about paying for licenses, patents, viruses, and any other Windows-based problem. And since they are likely to be designing their own systems, the hardware would be compatible.

Oh, and did I mention, Microsoft sponsored that show?

Friday, September 09, 2005

Using FeedBurner

Following Jon's example, I decided to go with FeedBurner for my blog feed. I checked it out, and it has a lot of really cool features. One cool feature is on-the-fly converting to make it as compatible as possible with the client being used (for example, this blog outputs an atom feed; if you subscribe with a client that supports RSS better than atom, it will convert it to RSS on-the-fly)

But some other cool features include the ability to see how many people subscribe to the feed, some cool buttons (you see one on the sidebar now), and tons of other great features that Blogger just can't offer.

If you have a blog, I strongly suggest giving it a try.

I have updated the blog with the new feed, which is now: feeds.feedburner.com/mightylinux. If you subscribe to this blog using it's old feed, that will continue to work, however I urge you to update it with the new URL. The advantage of this is... if I ever switch to another blog service (which may happen), you will still get the feed without having to change the URL. Also, you'll get the cool features like on-the-fly encoding. Something else I may do in the future is furl or del.icio.us, which also is supported in FeedBurner.

So, please update your agregators. Thanks!

(oh, and I also added Rojo to the syndication list)

Now This Makes Me Sick

OK, this is probably the most outrageous Microsoft story I have heard in a while.

David Zamos, a 21 year old college student, one day bought the student edition of Windows XP and Office XP from his college computer store for a total of $60. He got back and realized he would have to reformat his drive. He didn't want to loose all the important stuff on it, so he tried to return the software to the store. The store cashier told him that they had an agreement with Microsoft to not accept returns (why the hell would Microsoft do that, anyway?).

After that, he tried to request a return directly from Microsoft. He sent it by priority mail, so he knew when it arrived. Bill replied while counting his money, and it only took him 34 days to do that. He was denied.

So what did he do? He did what any other internet user would have done and tried selling it on eBay. Office sold for $112.50. He put up an auction for Windows XP, but that was taken down by a "Microsoft Investor" who accused him of infringing on the company's copyright.

According to eBay, Microsoft's resale policy is "Qualified end users may resell and purchase software through eBay." He had no idea what he did wrong.

He contacted one of Microsoft's lawyers about the case, and he replied stating several lawsuits where large companies pirated copies of their software and sold it. He replied, asking what this had to do with him and never got a response.

Soo, he sent a counterclaim to eBay and reposted the sale (stating the reselling policy in the description).

After selling for $91, he made a profit of $143.50 from both sales.

Microsoft came back at him with a lawsuit, stating "irreparable injury to its business reputation and goodwill", and even accused him of unfair competition (WTF?)

The article goes on, but I'll tell you that they did reach an agreement after a lot of embarrassment on Microsoft's part.

This kind of thing really gets to me. Microsoft operating systems are on over 90% of desktops, and their software is being used everywhere. Why would they waste their time suing the pants off of a college student who simply tried selling unopened educational software on eBay. They're in it purely for the money.

Article

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Why Not to Run Windows

I just came across this video (yes, on digg) that reminded me why people tend to 'hate computers' and why some of us don't use it. I'd like to quote part of it here (it's from BBC)
Jack wanted to show me how risky it is to connect an unprotected PC to the net. This poor Windows XP machine has no firewall and no AntiVirus software. Connecting to the internet would be like throwing it into a lion pen with raw meat straped to it's hard drive.

So how long would it be before we were hit with something nasty on the net? Hours? Minutes? As it turned out, 8 seconds.

Jack: Well, we just connected to the internet, and we've been hit by the sasser worm. Already.
It gets even better, but I won't ruin it. Go see the video.

Video

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

New GPL Penalizes Patents and DRM

According to an MSNBC article, upcoming changes to the GPL could penalize patents and DRM.

From the article:
"Software patents are clearly a menace to society and innovation. We like this to be more explicit. The basic idea is that if someone patents software, he loses the right to use free software. It's like a patent retaliation clause," Greve said.
Stallman will write a draft version of the new GPL by December, after which it will be evaluated by thousands of organizations, software developers and software users in 2006.
Good idea, but will this actually reduce patents and DRM? Possibly, but I'm not sure.

Article

TLLTS, Episode 100!

If you have any free time tomorrow night between 8:30 and 10, come check out The Linux Link Tech Show's 100th Episode! If you like Linux you'll love it. If you have listened to it pre-recorded before but not live, then you should listen to it live. It's real nice to have IRC to see what other people are saying in real time. They've been doing this since 2003, and currently are the longest running Linux show (I think even the longest running live tech show, but don't quote me on that) and they're doing their 100th episode. And from what I heard, they have a good lineup (and Jon may pop on again :-) )

Listen to the show on Binrev or Sysop using a media player like XMMS or Kaffeine, and be sure to follow along in the IRC. Fire up your favorite IRC client (I use Gaim, but most people like XChat) and join the server thelinuxlink.net, channel #techshow

I should be on IRC tomorrow, my username will be 'justin' (duh)

Congrats to Dann, Allan, Pat, and Linc. This is a real accomplishment.

TechPodcasts.com Update

I just caught the latest episode of Linux Log. First and foremost, it is now called Linux News Log.

I was listening for the beginning introduction, and to start out with, I hate it (Adrian, if you're reading this, do away with it. That rock music is just annoying). But... after that he went through "I'm your host, Adrian...". After a few moments, here is exactly what he says:
Linux News Log is a proud member of the Tech Podcasts network: 'If it's tech, it's here'. Head on over to www.techpodcasts.com. If you like any of my shows, you most certainty will find at least one or two shows there you will like as well. So, great network, been with them since very early on. We're constantly adding new shows, so do feel free to head on over there and check them out.
Wow, what a waste of breath. I timed how long it took him to say that, and it took him a whole 27 seconds. That's an additional half minute that I have to sit there and wait before I can actually listen to the content.

But beyond that, I listened on. The news didn't actually start until about seven and a half minutes into the podcast. This is an example of what I like to call a waste of time. I calculated it, and that first seven and a half minutes of crap is actually about 5 MB. This raises problems. It makes the download bigger, which isn't a problem for people on broadband, but for dial up users this can mean a much longer download. It also takes up extra space. Sure, not a whole lot, but after you have 30 different episodes, that gets to be an extra 150 MB of introduction and crap. Disgusting.

In this whole Linux Log mishap, I've discovered what (I think) makes a good podcast. First of all, they shouldn't be longer than 40 minutes (although there are exceptions). I think that structured podcasts should be in this format:
  • A quick thirty second introduction (I really like the one on TLLTS)
  • A 1-2 minute (or so) description of the podcast, announcements, and the upcoming content
  • The main content
  • Any final thoughts on the content
  • A quick thirty second (or so) outtro with the website, email, IM, info like that.
And, of course, there are exceptions. I said that most podcasts shouldn't be longer than 40 minutes, but one exception is TLLTS. I actually try to set aside a full hour and 30 mins. every wednessday to listen to the show live, but most podcasts are pre-recorded.

One of the podcasts that I listen to that I feel really sticks to this kind of format is The GNU/Linux User Show. Keep up the good work!

But I digress. TechPodcasts.com sucks.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

TechPodcasts.com Sucks!!!

If anyone here listens to a show like the Linux Log (kinda dry for me, but hey, it's Linux), you've probably heard of the Tech Podcast network. And here's my opinion of it - IT SUCKS. It comes forward as a website that simply provides links to other podcasts related to technology, but it's not really that.

I'll use Linux Log as an example for this. Every show, he has a big, stupid introduction, and he states "Linux Log is a proud member of the Tech Podcasts network: If it's tech, it's here". And if you look on the website, every episode has a stupid button that links to the Tech Podcasts site - like we don't already know that!

But not does it make podcasts do this, but the index (at least for Linux) also sucks. Look, there are a total of two Linux shows there, but there are far more (much better) ones. TLLTS, The Linux User Show, even older ones like The Linux Box and The Linux Show aren't listed there at all.

So what do I think the Tech Podcast site is about? Simply to make money. Their title makes the user think they're a complete directory of high quality podcasts about technology, and there is no truth to that at all. It would be one thing if they did what The Podcast Network did and actually provide hosting for the podcasts, but to make the podcasters make one big, stupid announcement once or more in every show and simply link back to them in return, they're not really holding up their end of the bargain.

Normally I'd link to them here, but I'm not going to. Kiss my ass!

Good Job, Massachusetts!

You may remember when I posted about Massachusetts dumping MS Office in favor of the Open Document Format? Well, now we have some more information.

InformationWeek has an article about both sides of the dispute, Microsoft and Massachusetts.

From the InformationWeek Article:
Kriss said, however, the state's IT administration carefully reviewed and considered both Microsoft's Office XML schemas and OpenDocument but voted for the latter as the standard that would best meet the needs of the citizens of Massachusetts. He said the state had concerns about the openness of the XML schemas and potential patent issues that could arise in the future.
I couldn't have said it better.
While any company can adopt the royalty free standard, Microsoft will not support OpenDocument in its next version of Office 12 because it is an inferior file format and is not compatible with older versions of Office, one Microsoft executive said this week after the report was released. Office 12 is due next year.
Inferior? Excuse me, Microsoft, but if it is in fact 'inferior', then why is it being used? Free Software isn't inferior, it is much, much better.
"No," said Alan Yates, general manager of Microsoft's Information Worker Business Strategy, when asked by CRN about the potential for Office to support OpenDocument. "The Office "12" formats pay special attention to compatibility with older document versions, [and] other formats do not concern themselves with this important issue," Yates said.

Further, he added, "this proposal acknowledges that Open Document does not address pictures, audio, video, charts, maps, voice, voice-over-IP, and other kinds of data our customers are increasingly putting in documents and archiving."
Actually, I have a story about this, to prove that these things are not always good.

I have a friend, who sent me an IM one day. This friend isn't very computer smart, but isn't computer stupid either. She needed help uploading her picture to her blog. I told her to browse to where she saved the picture (in the webpage), and click on upload. She did this, but it didn't work. Suspecting that it was an issue of how big the picture was, I asked her to paste the text on the page where she got the error. It said that the format was not a picture. What kind of format was it? "application/msword". I asked her why she tried to upload a Word document to put her picture up, and she said that she pasted the picture into a Word document. I rest my case.

InformationWeek Article

Saturday, September 03, 2005

A Good Blog Search (about time...)

I have finally got around to adding a Technorati search to my blog. The Google search is great, but it just doesn't update nearly as frequently as I post, and it's not optimized for blogs.

So, after playing around with CSS for a while, I finally am satisfied with the search form, and I think it goes along great with the theme. Let me know what you think.

WordPress Offering Free Blog Hosting?

Hmm... A while back, I accidentally went to wordpress.com instead of wordpress.org. It was interesting, so I entered my email and reserved the name 'justin'. Now I think I know what they are doing there.

It seems they are offering WP hosting for free if you have an invitation (kinda like GMail). Hopefully I'll get mine soon, as WP looks far better than Blogger, we'll just see how good the service is.

If I do use their hosting, it may be mightylinux.wordpress.com or justin.wordpress.com, who knows...

Getting Dish Network

Yes, it's true. Yesterday I went out and ordered Dish Network.

I have Time Warner cable for the longest time (no, we don't get Comcast up here, but I wish we did). I just got fed up with it, and I want a change.

Dish Network is actually cheaper and looks like it has more channels that I actually will watch. But when I got information about it, I found some hidden jewels.

First of all, my first month is free, and for the first month I get everything. Yes, over 200 digital channels including HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime (I don't think I get Starz, though). After that, I get to keep the movie channels for two more months. I also found out that with the Top 120 package (which is what I'm getting), you also get most of the music channels on Sirius satellite radio (with the exception of 4, I think). I went to their website and counted, and between Sirius and their own digital music channels, there is a total of 95. 95! Sweet.

I also am getting their DVR service. I know that there's all sorts of restrictions and I do have a MythTV box upstairs, but that box is just too slow and I don't want to shell out $500 right now to build a new one (that's an option for the future, however).

It gets installed on Tuesday, I'll update you then :-)

Friday, September 02, 2005

People Looting WalMart, Including Police

I came across this on digg (yes, another digg link).

It's a video off of MSNBC. A reporter went into a WalMart in New Orleans (at least I think it's New Orleans, but it may be somewhere else). He found that everyone was looting the store, including the police.
Reporter: "What are you doing?" (to a police officer)
Police Officer: "I'm doing my job."
R: "Taking shoes?"
PO: "No, I'm looking for looters."
R: "Looking for looters? And what do you do when you find them, because I see them..."
PO: "[unclear], that's all I can do with them now sir."
R: "They're all around us, though."
PO: "That's what I see, including you. What are you doing here?"
R: "But I haven't taken anything, ma'am."
PO: "But you're in the store"
And yet you can clearly see the Police Officer with a shopping cart full of stuff... How can she say that she's not looting?

It's getting crazy down there.

Video

Thursday, September 01, 2005

TLLTS Episode 99, Check It Out

I just finished listening to episode 99 of TLLTS on my iPod today. Normally, I try to listen live as much as I can (which usually means I listen live about 3/5 of the time). It just so happened that I couldn't listen last night, but I wish I could have.

I found out (before I heard the show) that Jon Watson came on unexpectedly. I listened and, sure enough, they started calling him on skype at what seemed like a random point in the show (since there's not live chat to go along with it). Checking out the chatlog afterwords, this is what was in there:
21:12 < jon> <-- would like to come on the show
21:13 < dann> jon, via skype?
21:13 < dann> RIGHT NOW?
21:13 < jon> Sure
21:13 < jon> Sure
21:13 < dann> hold on
And like that, he was on. Pretty cool that they are so flexible (hey, there were no planned guests anyway).

Massachusetts Dumps MS Office

Another digged link...

Apparently, Massachusetts has dumped MS Office and their proprietary file formats in favor of open formats, PDF and OpenOffice. I think this is a smart move, since you want papers to be viewable by the widest audience. Think about it - how often has it happened that you wanted to send someone a Word document (or some other format) only to find out that they can't open it because they have something like Works (which is fairly common on preinstalled desktop machines).

Article